Thursday, July 9, 2009

KHL->NHL Equivalency with TOI

The value of keeping better statistics has finally moved past the NHL, with the top Finnish, Swedish and Russian leagues tracking and publishing ice time figures for every player. There's very little player movement between the NHL and Finland, but there's enough to generate an NHL Equivalency for the other two leagues that accounts for playing time differences.

This gives equivalencies of 0.57 for the SEL and 0.54 for the KHL. Adjusting for icetime differences, the NHLEs are 0.78 (SEL) and 0.67 (KHL). The Russian figures are surprisingly low - in the past, the top Russian league was better than the SEL, and approached the caliber of the NHL in some cases.